Egyptian army seizes weapons cache in Sinai Peninsula

By Viola Fahmy

CAIRO

The Egyptian army said Thursday that it had seized a cache of anti-tank missiles from “extremist elements” based in Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula.

"Army forces have seized an arms depot belonging to extremist elements in central Sinai," army spokesman Tamer al-Rifai said in a statement, adding that the depot had contained a number of anti-tank missiles and mortar shells.

On Wednesday evening, President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi called on the Egyptian army and police apparatus to "restore -- by brute force if necessary -- security and stability in Sinai within three months”.

Al-Sisi’s order came five days after a militant attack on a mosque in the northern Sinai Peninsula that left more than 300 people and scores more injured.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Egyptian officials point the finger at a Sinai-based militant group that they claim is linked to the Daesh terrorist organization.

Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula has remained the epicenter of a deadly militant insurgency since mid-2013, when Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s first freely-elected president, was ousted and imprisoned in a bloody military coup.

Since then, hundreds of Egyptian security personnel have been killed in attacks across Sinai, especially in the peninsula’s restive northeastern quadrant, which shares borders with both Israel and the Gaza Strip.